The Brutal Ravisher of a Little Child Hanged in South Carolina - A Stupid Jurys Work Completed.
Item
- Title
- The Brutal Ravisher of a Little Child Hanged in South Carolina - A Stupid Jurys Work Completed.
- Source
- Savannah Morning News (GA)
- Date
- 1881-10-14
- page
- 1
- Identifier
- https://www.loc.gov/item/sn82015137/1881-10-14/ed-1/.
- Crime
- Rape
- Subject
- Rape; Litttle Girl; Mob Lynching
- Race of alleged offender
- Black alleged offender
- Gender of alleged offender
- Male alleged offender
- Race of alleged victim
- White alleged victim
- Gender of alleged victim
- Female alleged victim
- Law enforcement involved
- Mob
- Stage of the Legal System
- Extralegal
- Location
- Out of State, Charleston SC
- Length of story
- 317
- Description
-
Charleston, October 13.—Jack Williams,
a negro, who committed a rape upon Linnie
Hughes, a little white girl living with her
parents a few miles from Orangeburg, in
thi6 State, was convicted by a white jury a
day or two ago, but recommended to the
mercy of the court, which, under the laws
of this State, mitigated the sentence from
death to imprisonment for life.
The prisoner was accordingly sentenced
yesterday to Imprisonment. The action of
the grand jury excited the utmost indigna
tion In the community, and was very se
verely censured, particularly as the same
jury condemned a negro to be hung for
burning a barn. The case was most horrid
in its details, and ten of the jury subse
quently attempted to clear their skirts of
the stigma by signing a statement that, they
did not know that their recommendation to
mercy acted as a palliation of the sentence,
but thought it left the matter In the discre
tion of the court. Public opinion was much
aroused, and the general Indignation culminated this morning the lynching of the
fiend.
A band of about, twenty five men from
the scene of the outrage entered the jail
about 2 o’clock, overpowered the jailer,
took the fiend out to the suburbs of the
t own, and after obtaining from him a repetition of the confession, which he had formerly made, hanged him to the limb of a
tree. Fastened across the breast of the
negro was found a placard with the follow
lug inscription in large letters:
“Our wives, mothers, sisters and daughters
shall be protected, the decision of an
Orangeburg jury to the contrary not with
standing.”
The lynching Is universally regarded as a
righteous act, committed only after the
jury had failed In the discharge of its duty.
It is a subject of surprise to some that the
jurymen were not included In the execution.